“Excel” used to be my second language. Spreadsheets are what I used all day long to create models translating environmental, health, and economic data into information that could be used by decision makers in DC. Which might explain why I am so tickled to see the responses of our Ends Survey come in and why … Continue reading 2020 Member Survey – early results
Our mission has never felt as relevant as today: Connecting in love and service, growing spiritually, transforming ourselves and the world. In record time, we’ve had to transform ourselves from a brick & mortar, relish-in-person-proximity, love-to-share-food-and-hold-hands kind of congregation into an online, phone-line, keep your physical distance kind of community. None of us know the … Continue reading Church in a Time of Pandemic
So much of what we love to do together happens in close physical proximity – the sharing of food, our worship, the singing, holding hands, playing games, eating chocolate, sitting in circles, or embracing one another as we show our care and affection. Now, as always, and perhaps more than ever, we need each … Continue reading Suspending All In-person Church Activities
It’s 10:21 pm. The parents have said their good-byes. Five more hours and we are headed to the airport. The youth are excited, roaming the church – and nowhere near ready for sleep. Time to finish these musings, musings about the importance of stories and the impact of church when it helps to create stories … Continue reading Telling Our Stories
What do we mean when we say that Unitarian Universalism is a covenantal faith? It points to our history as a faith focused on the quality of how we relate with one another. In 1648 The Cambridge Platform gave expression to the way congregational churches are intended to work. Institutionally, we emerged out of these … Continue reading Ours is a Covenental Faith
I’d like to think that my sermons help inspire you to greater and greater acts of compassion. Apparently, I’ve been fooling myself. What shapes our readiness to act with compassion is something quite different. A podcast of a German radio program (SWR2 Wissen) provided this summary: A number of seminary students were divided into two … Continue reading Pacing Ourselves, for Compassion
“Stress is caused by being ‘here’ but wanting to be ‘there,’ or being in the present and wanting to be in the future.” So simple these words by Eckhart Tolle, yet how true. We never really have a choice, of course. We are always ‘here’ rather than ‘there,’ always taking this one step right now … Continue reading Right Here… Right Now
“We stopped coming and no one ever said a word.” “The only call I ever got from the church was about my pledge.” “I went through a rough time but the church didn’t seem to notice.” In other words: You didn’t care about me as a person. Hearing the disappointment and hurt expressed in … Continue reading Staying in Touch
I am planning to go on strike. And I hope you will join me. Greta Thunberg, the 16 year old climate activist is right. If not me, then who? If not now, then when? September 20th is Climate Strike Day. Millions of people around the globe, led by the youth, will express their readiness to … Continue reading Minister is Going on Strike
As we say each Sunday: “Let this be our covenant: … and to help one another.” These words have been at the core of so much of our ministry this winter. I don’t recall another time since my arrival in Concord with so many of us in need of care or involved in providing care. … Continue reading Circles of Care: Comfort in, Dump out
